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Increasing evidence strongly links neuroinflammation to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis. Peripheral monocytes are crucial components of the human immune system, but their contribution to AD pathogenesis is still largely understudied partially due to limited human models. Here, we introduce human cortical organoid microphysiological systems (hCO-MPSs) to study AD monocyte-mediated neuroinflammation. By culturing doughnut-shape organoids on 3D-printed devices within standard 96-well plates, we generate hCO-MPSs with reduced necrosis, minimized hypoxia, and improved viability. Using these models, we found that monocytes from AD patients exhibit increased infiltration ability, decreased amyloid-β clearance capacity, and stronger inflammatory response than monocytes from age-matched control donors. Moreover, we observed that AD monocytes induce pro-inflammatory effects such as elevated astrocyte activation and neuronal apoptosis. Furthermore, the marked increase in IL1B and CCL3 expression underscores their pivotal role in AD monocyte-mediated neuroinflammation. Our findings provide insight into understanding monocytes’ role in AD pathogenesis, and our lab-compatible MPS models may offer a promising way for studying various neuroinflammatory diseases.
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This content will become publicly available on June 25, 2026
Engineering blood–brain barrier microphysiological systems to model Alzheimer's disease monocyte penetration and infiltration
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive and neurodegenerative disease, predominantly causing dementia. Despite increasing clinical evidence suggesting the involvement of peripheral immune cells such as monocytes in AD pathology, the dynamic penetration and infiltration of monocytes crossing blood–brain barrier (BBB) and inducing neuroinflammation is largely understudied in an AD brain. Herein, we engineer BBB-like microphysiological system (BBB-MPS) models for recapitulating the dynamic penetration and infiltration of monocytes in an AD patient's brain. Each BBB-MPS model can be engineered by integrating a functional BBB-like structure on a human cortical organoid using a 3D-printed device within a well of a plate. By coculturing these BBB-MPS models with monocytes from AD patients and age-matched healthy donors, we found that AD monocytes exhibit significantly greater BBB penetration and brain infiltration compared to age-matched control monocytes. Moreover, we also tested the interventions including Minocycline and Bindarit, and found they can effectively inhibit AD monocyte infiltration, subsequently reducing neuroinflammation and neuronal apoptosis. We believe these scalable and user-friendly BBB-MPS models may hold promising potential in modeling and advancing therapeutics for neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2422149
- PAR ID:
- 10630421
- Publisher / Repository:
- Biomaterials Science
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Biomaterials Science
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 13
- ISSN:
- 2047-4830
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 3650 to 3661
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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